Thousands of CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity - and it has economists resurrecting a paradox from 40 years ago

https://fortune.com/article/why-do-thousands-of-ceos-believe-ai-not-
having-impact-productivity-employment-study/

In 1987, economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow made a stark 
observation about the stalling evolution of the Information Age: Following 
the advent of transistors, microprocessors, integrated circuits, and 
memory chips of the 1960s, economists and companies expected these new 
technologies to disrupt workplaces and result in a surge of productivity. 
Instead, productivity growth slowed, dropping from 2.9% from 1948 to 1973, 
to 1.1% after 1973.

Newfangled computers were actually at times producing too much 
information, generating agonizingly detailed reports and printing them on 
reams of paper. What had promised to be a boom to workplace productivity 
was for several years a bust. This unexpected outcome became known as 
Solow’s productivity paradox, thanks to the economist’s observation of the 
phenomenon.

“You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity 
statistics,” Solow wrote in a New York Times Book Review article in 1987.

Data on how C-suite executives are—or aren’t—using AI shows history is 
repeating itself, complicating the similar promises economists and Big 
Tech founders made about the technology’s impact on the workplace and 
economy. Despite 374 companies in the S&P 500 mentioning AI in earnings 
calls—most of which said the technology’s implementation in the firm was 
entirely positive—according to a Financial Times analysis from September 
2024 to 2025, those positive adoptions aren’t being reflected in broader 
productivity gains.

A study published in February by the National Bureau of Economic Research 
found that among 6,000 CEOs, chief financial officers, and other 
executives from firms who responded to various business outlook surveys in 
the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Australia, the vast majority see little 
impact from AI on their operations. While about two-thirds of executives 
reported using AI, that usage amounted to only about 1.5 hours per week, 
and 25% of respondents reported not using AI in the workplace at all. 
Nearly 90% of firms said AI has had no impact on employment or 
productivity over the last three years, the research noted.

However, firms’ expectations of AI’s workplace and economic impact 
remained substantial: Executives also forecast AI will increase 
productivity by 1.4% and increase output by 0.8% over the next three 
years. While firms expected a 0.7% cut to employment over this time 
period, individual employees surveyed saw a 0.5% increase in employment.

Is AI actually making people more productive?
In 2023, MIT researchers claimed AI implementation could increase a 
worker’s performance by nearly 40% compared to workers who didn’t use the 
technology. But emerging data failing to show these promised productivity 
gains has led economists to wonder when—or if—AI will offer a return on 
corporate investments, which swelled to more than $250 billion in 2024.

“AI is everywhere except in the incoming macroeconomic data,” Apollo chief 
economist Torsten Slok wrote in a blog post, invoking Solow’s observation 
from nearly 40 years ago. “Today, you don’t see AI in the employment data, 
productivity data, or inflation data.”

Slok added that outside of the Magnificent Seven, there are “no signs of 
AI in profit margins or earnings expectations.”

Slok cited a slew of academic studies on AI and productivity, painting a 
contradictory picture about the utility of the technology. Last November, 
the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published in its State of Generative 
AI Adoption report that it observed a 1.9% increase in excess cumulative 
productivity growth since the late-2022 introduction of ChatGPT. A 2024 
MIT study, however, found a more modest 0.5% increase in productivity over 
the next decade.

“I don’t think we should belittle 0.5% in 10 years. That’s better than 
zero,” study author and Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu said at the time. 
“But it’s just disappointing relative to the promises that people in the 
industry and in tech journalism are making.”

Other emerging research can offer reasons why: Workforce solutions firm 
ManpowerGroup’s 2026 Global Talent Barometer found that across nearly 
14,000 workers in 19 countries, workers’ regular AI use increased 13% in 
2025, but confidence in the technology’s utility plummeted 18%, indicating 
persistent distrust.

AI adoption can even be counterproductive at a certain point, according to 
a study conducted by Boston Consulting Group, leading to “AI brain fry.” 
In a survey of 1,488 full-time U.S.-based workers, respondents reported 
increased productivity when using three or fewer AI tools, but self-
reported productivity plummeted when respondents used four or more tools, 
with workers saying they felt brain fog or made more small mistakes as a 
result of technology overuse.

Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM’s chief human resources officer, said this year the 
tech giant would triple its number of young hires, suggesting that despite 
AI’s ability to automate some of the required tasks, displacing entry-
level workers would create a dearth of middle managers down the line, 
endangering the company’s leadership pipeline.

What could reverse AI’s productivity pattern?
To be sure, this productivity pattern could reverse. The IT boom of the 
1970s and ’80s eventually gave way to a surge of productivity in the 1990s 
and early 2000s, including a 1.5% increase in productivity growth from 
1995 to 2005 following decades of slump. 

Economist and Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab director Erik 
Brynjolfsson noted in a Financial Times op-ed the trend may already be 
reversing. He observed that fourth-quarter GDP was tracking up 3.7%, 
despite last week’s jobs report revising down job gains to just 181,000, 
suggesting a productivity surge. His own analysis indicated a U.S. 
productivity jump of 2.7% last year, which he attributed to a transition 
from AI investment to reaping the benefits of the technology. Former Pimco 
CEO and economist Mohamed El-Erian also noted job growth and GDP growth 
continuing to decouple as a result in part of continued AI adoption, a 
similar phenomenon that occurred in the 1990s with office automation.

Some productivity increases may be hiding in plain sight. A study led by 
the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research found using internet 
browsing data from 200,000 U.S. households that generative AI increased 
the efficiency of online tasks like job hunting, travel planning, or 
shopping from between 76% and 176%. However, researchers found the time AI 
users saved on chores was spent hanging out with friends or watching 
television, as opposed to spent on work on new skills development.

Slok saw the future impact of AI as potentially resembling a “J-curve” of 
an initial slowdown in performance and results, followed by an exponential 
surge. He said whether AI’s productivity gains would follow this pattern 
would depend on the value created by AI. 

So far, AI’s path has already diverged from its IT predecessor. Slok noted 
in the 1980s, an innovator in the IT space had monopoly pricing power 
until competitors could create similar products. Today, however, AI tools 
are readily accessible as a result of “fierce competition” between large 
language model-buildings driving down prices.

Therefore, Slok posited, the future of AI productivity would depend on 
companies’ interest in taking advantage of the technology and continuing 
to incorporate it into their workplaces. “In other words, from a macro 
perspective, the value creation is not the product,” Slok said, “but how 
generative AI is used and implemented in different sectors in the 
economy.”

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Feb. 17, 2026.

More on AI and productivity:
AI is making productivity obsolete. The leaders who thrive next will have 
something machines can’t touch
AI promised supreme productivity, but it’s actually straining workloads 
for employees—time spent emailing has doubled, and focused work sessions 
fell by 9%

AI promises to free workers from grunt work, but psychologists say those 
mindless tasks are exactly what our brains need to recover


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.